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Fig. 1 The beacon. This is the bulb Lennart used, a 1.5-volt amber Super Micro Bulb from GRS Micro Liting. Bulb Resistor Common (blue wire) Decoder Fig. 4 Wiring diagram. It doesn’t matter which bulb lead gets the resistor, as long as it goes to the decoder’s function output (green wire). ▸▸ Materials list GRS Micro Liting GRS103 1.5V amber Super Micro Bulb Miscellaneous .010" x .040" styrene strip 680-ohm, 1 ⁄8 -watt resistor Heat-shrink tubing Silver paint get a tight fit around the bulb where the ends of the strip meet. When the glue has dried, cut and gently file smooth the ends of the styrene strip to disguise the seam. Then, using a fine brush, paint the styrene ring silver (or the color used by of your chosen prototype) as shown in fig. 3. Next, drill a hole in the locomotive cab roof where you want to place the beacon. You might need to deviate a bit from the prototypically correct location to make sure that the bulb and its wires will not interfere with the mechanism or the proper seating of the shell. Thread the bulb wires through the hole in the roof and test-fit the bulb. The bottom of the bulb may be somewhat oval, so you might need to widen the hole. When the bulb fits well, glue it to the roof with a drop of cyanoacrylate adhesive (CA). Wait for the CA to cure properly before continuing. Inside the shell, bend the wires toward the roof. Make the bend as close to the bulb as possible. Be careful – if you try to bend the wires too close to the bulb, you might break it. Wiring The details of the next step depend on the type and location of your locomotive’s decoder. But in general, one bulb wire connects to the common (blue) output of the decoder and the other goes to the unused decoder function output. The resistor should be soldered into one of those connections, but it doesn’t matter which. See fig. 4 for a wiring schematic. Start by cutting the bulb wires to a suitable length. If you make them too short, the body shell will be in the way when soldering the bulb’s leads to the decoder or when removing the shell for maintenance later on. If you leave the wires too long, it will be difficult to fit them into the shell. Slip two short lengths of heat-shrink tubing over the wires before soldering. Solder the resistor to one of the bulb wires; it doesn’t matter which. Choose the one that gives you the most suitable location for the resistor. Solder the leads to the decoder, then slide the tubes over the connections and shrink them to protect the wires from short circuits. Figure 5 shows a sample installation in an Atlas GP30 with a Digitrax DZ143 decoder. Check the instructions for your specific decoder to find the location of its function outputs. Replace the body shell, being care- ful not to pinch the wires between the shell and the frame. Damaging the insulation can cause a short circuit that will blow the bulb. The only remaining step is to pro- gram the flash time on your decoder’s function output to simulate the interval of a rotary beacon. Since the details of that task depend on your decoder, consult the decoder’s manual for programming instructions.MR Lennart Svedberg lives in Ekerö, Sweden, where he works as a software engineer. He lives with his wife, Pia, his son, Markus, and their two cats. They also have two grown children, Per-Olov and Karin. Lennart models a freelanced version of the Chicago & North Western RR in N scale. o4/o9 • Model Railroader 67 Lead to common wire (blue) Lead to function output (green) Decoder Fig. 5 Atlas installation. In this GP30, the resistor is soldered into the wire leading to the decoder’s F1 function output and protected with heat-shrink tubing. The other bulb lead goes to the common (blue) decoder wire. Function output Fig 2 Wrap it up. The base is made from strip of .010" x .040" styrene cemented to the bottom of the bulb. Resistor Fig. 3 Bulb base. Lennart trimmed the ends of the styrene strip before he painted the base silver. Heat-shrink tubing